George Wein: I made a living

Impresario George Wein talked to passengers on the MS Noordam jazz cruise in February, as reported by Keith McDowall in April JJ and excerpted below.

In 1950 George Wein started Storyville in Boston, possibly the first ever club solely devoted to jazz. It was a pioneer concept. At 24 he was $20,000 in debt. Then he heard Louis Armstrong and his All Stars were in town. Wein told a friend to invite the musicians to Storyville.

Storyville became a jazz mecca but, advised Wein, if you want to make money, go for something else, not jazz. "I never made a dime but I got a living," said Wein. Nevertheless, he and his wife recently donated $1,000,000 to endow a professorship in African American studies at Boston University.